00:00France is thrown into fresh political crisis this Monday.
00:04Prime Minister François Bayrou and his minority government have collapsed
00:08after losing a crucial confidence vote in the country's lower house of parliament.
00:14Bayrou, who had been in office for less than a year,
00:16took the unprecedented step of calling the vote himself,
00:20betting that lawmakers would back his controversial plan
00:24to cut 44 billion euros in spending next year.
00:29Instead, he was handed a stinging defeat by an absolute majority of 364 votes
00:35out of a total of 558, forcing his resignation.
00:40At the heart of the political crisis are the country's fragile finances.
00:45Last year's deficit was nearly double the EU's accepted rules.
00:51That leaves French President Emmanuel Macron scrambling to find his fifth prime minister
00:56since the start of his second mandate in 2022.
01:01But outside the corridors of power, anger is growing.
01:05Grassroots groups have already announced nationwide strikes this Wednesday.
01:11And France's main unions also have planned mass protests at the end of the month
01:18to protest against these budget cuts.
01:21Sofia Katzenkova reporting from Paris for Euronews.
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